


Planter

by pirategirljack



Series: Weekly Fic Project 2017 [5]
Category: Lethal Weapon (TV)
Genre: riggs overdoes things trope, riggshill, weekly fic project 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-24 22:31:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9790037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pirategirljack/pseuds/pirategirljack
Summary: Riggs owes Cahill a planter. I have decided that Riggs always way overdoes it when he pays back debts of literally any kind, so this is what happened.This ship is held up in port for a while as if this most recent ep, but I still like it even if it's messed up and unlikely. Tho I could get on board the Riggsmer ship if they do it right...Related: I just arbitrarily decided that Cahill's new house would be on the beach; I don't remember if the show said either way.





	

Cahill opened the door on the third ring to find a beautiful glazed ceramic planter full of expensive looking flowers with Riggs’s arms and legs poking out from it. It was huge--she couldn't even see his face or most of his body. It looked heavy. 

“Hello? Did you open the door?”

“Riggs. What in the world?”

“I owed you a planter, since I broke that one before. And then broke your house. I can’t replace the house yet, but the planter, that I can do. So here.”

He foisted it toward her but it was even heavier than it looked, and she almost dropped it and there was an awkward game of hot potato as they tried to get it back in some sort of viable position before he took it back and invited himself inside.

He wandered around her new house, pausing by every table and counter with a critical eye and an exaggerated pursed lip before he finally wandered out onto the porch, all the while acting like the thing didn't weigh as much as she did. (She refused to think about what it meant that he could so casually carry around her weight) Finally, he picked a spot by the stairs down to the beach at the back, and carefully lowered it to the wood. Then fussed over getting it exactly right based on where the light was and how the wind was blowing, then ran his fingers down a long arcing leaf. He was basically the personification of the word "troublesome" and getting him to talk about real things was like herding cats--angry ones--but he was also her friend and he obviously had something on his mind.

“Is something else going on?”

He looked up like he'd forgotten she was there. She was never sure if he did zone out enough to be startled when people spoke like that or if it was just something he did, another quirk in a quirky guy. She made a mental note to look into that more as their sessions went on.

“Nah. No. I'm fine.”

“Really?”

“It's just…”

“What?”

“It's kind of my fault your house got burned down.”

She leveled a flat look on him and held it until he looked at her directly in return. “That was Montero’s fault. You're the reason why I didn't burn down with it.”

“Yeah. Yeah, true.”

He traced the edges of another leaf, lingering on the stairs instead of making any move at all to leave. That same fake-casual thing he did all the time, one hand in his pocket.

She sighed. Just a little. “But you feel responsible anyway.”

“It's just that you had all that nice stuff. Your own stuff, stuff I can't replace. I didn't mean for that to happen. All your pretty dresses and those cozy looking sweaters and all those nice pillows…”

She moved closer, and sat on the stair next to him. After a second he sat, too.

“I'm sorry, Doc, is what I'm trying to say.”

“I can get new stuff Riggs. Some of it is sad, some of it survived the fire and is fine. But mostly...mostly I'm just happy to be alive.”

He looked at her out of the side of his eye as if he thought that--being happy to not have been exploded--was the hard part to believe here. But he didn't argue. She decided to call that progress; before, he might have challenged the idea that being alive was good.

“Nice place you found here.”

“I already had it.”

“You can afford two houses in LA on a city salary? I should go into the shrink biz, I think I missed my calling.”

She smiled a little. Riggs as anyone's psychiatrist was a terrifying thought, but he was being sweet. “The one that blew up really was Brad’s. I'd already found this one, I just hadn't moved all the way in yet.”

“Can't beat that view.”

“No, you really can't.”

A few heartbeats of shared silence, then he climbed to his feet without warning, clapped his hands once, and said “The nice lady at the nursery said these should all be good for a beachside climate, and shouldn't be bothered by direct sun, and I picked the ones with the nicest flowers since nothing says “sorry I exploded your house while saving your life” like nice flowers, and I think it's time to go.”

“You sure? I was about to call for takeout?”

“Ah. No, thank you, really. I’ll just. I've got a thing. Rain check?”

“Sure. Thank you, Riggs. For the enormous and expensive planter.”

“I promised.”

And then he was gone, closing the door gently after himself as he went, as if scared this house might explode around him too. She wasn't entirely sure it wouldn't; she'd seen the accident reports he and Murtaugh kept wracking up, so she was glad of his gentleness. He made a sort of half-careful, half-goodbye sort of gesture at her through the glass of the door before pushing both his hands into his pockets and ambling back through the living room to the front door.

She waited until she heard his loud engine disappear into the distance, marveling at his contradictions, then scooted over and looked closer at the plants. He really had picked the prettiest ones, and the whole effect was tasteful and chic. She didn't know if it was him, or the nursery girl’s talent, but she couldn't help feeling touched. She leaned her shoulder against the heavy, sun-warmed ceramic and watched the sun go down.

Maybe Riggs wasn't as much a lost cause as he thought he was.

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of my Weekly Fic Project! I'm trying to write at least one fic a week all year, so if you have a prompt for this or any of the fandoms I write, leave it in the comments!


End file.
